


Are You Colour-Blind??? – The Dress

by Fire_Traveller



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Bickering, Flashback to 2015, Humor, Humour, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), M/M, Other, THE DRESS, What Colour Is It, an Angel and a Demon have very different opinions, different perceptions, the essential question everyone had in 2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:07:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25686304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fire_Traveller/pseuds/Fire_Traveller
Summary: We may all remember the picture of a certain dress that went viral in 2015 and had people in heated debates concerning the colours of the dress. A short conversation recently reminded me of said dress and I couldn't help thinking that a certain angel and demon would most definitely have joined that debate, so here's my take on what happened some day roughly five years ago. According to the timeline in the TV series, around that time both Crowley and Aziraphale were still busy trying to influence the boy they believed to be the Antichrist, so a discussion about something as mundane as the colours of "the dress" would probably have been a welcome diversion...Further notes at the end...
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19





	Are You Colour-Blind??? – The Dress

“Well, clearly, it’s black and blue, Angel. I mean, what else is it supposed to be? I really don’t get what all the fuss is about.” Aziraphale shook his head in mild confusion. “Black and blue? Crowley, what are you talking about? The dress in this photograph is white and golden.” For a moment, Crowley stared at the angel, utterly bewildered. “Wh-…hgnn…y-… _What?_ White and…How? Where is this anywhere near white? It’s black! I mean, look at it, Angel! You can’t be serious!” The angel in question was staring alternately at Crowley and the image on Crowley’s mobile phone. After a while, realisation began to dawn on his face. “Ooooh… _now_ I understand! You’re trying to pull my leg, you wily serpent! I mean…it _is_ rather obvious. You cannot seriously be seeing this as…”

But he stopped himself when he saw the way Crowley was staring at him. If the angel had suddenly grown a second head, the demon’s expression couldn’t have been more bewildered. Aziraphale sighed. “So…you…you really see this as…black and blue? Well…which parts of this dress are black, in your opinion?” “Well…”, Crowley pointed at some of the stripes on the dress, “these are black and those”, he pointed at the other stripes, “are blue! Obviously! Where do you see any white and gold in this? Because I don’t see it.” Aziraphale shrugged. “Well…okay, my dear…look here…”, the angel began to point at the stripes while explaining, “these here are clearly white and those are golden. Obviously!”

Crowley shook his head very slowly, but then he raised a finger in a gesture for the angel to wait for a moment, put the phone down on the table in front of the old sofa in the bookshop that they were sitting on, and got up. Aziraphale frowned. What was the demon up to now? A moment later Crowley returned, Aziraphale’s cocoa mug with the angel wings in hand. He put the mug down next to the phone. “Now. Look, Angel. If you compare this to the colour of your mug – which is clearly white, as I _hope_ you’ll agree with me?” Aziraphale huffed, but when he saw Crowley’s quirked eyebrow, he nodded. “Of course it is! What a foolish question…”, he added in a mutter. Behind his sunglasses, Crowley rolled his eyes. Then he gestured back to the mug and the picture of the dress. “Now. Tell me: How is _this_ anywhere close to _this_ colour?”

Aziraphale sighed. “But…Crowley! The photograph clearly shows the dress in the shadows, it’s fairly dark in that picture – of course it doesn’t look like my mug, it’s not as dark in h-…what are you…?” While he was trying to explain, the demon let out a frustrated groan and snapped his fingers, causing all the shutters and blinds in the windows to go down, leaving them both in darkness…only illuminated by the screen of the mobile phone, still showing the dress with the questionable colour-pattern. “Does it look the same now?”, Crowley asked, sounding rather exasperated. “Uh…well…rather! Don’t you think? Still not the same light conditions, but…well…” The demon sighed again, allowing the light of day back into the bookshop. He took a deep breath and seemed to be steeling himself mentally. Then he leaned his arm onto the table next to the phone. “Say what you will, Angel, but I’d say the colour of my sleeve is way closer to the colour of those stripes on that stupid dress than the colour of your mug. Not even in the gloom of Hell would this be seen as white and gold.”

Aziraphale remained quiet for a moment. How was he to phrase this? “Look…Is there…a solution for this question? I mean…the way I see it…I still see this as golden and white…or…well, okay, cream-coloured, maybe. Could it be that…you see it as…black and blue…because…well…black is all you ever wear and surround yourself with…?” That, apparently, was the wrong way of phrasing it, because it earned him an angry hiss. “Ssseriousssly? What are you sssuggesssting? That I’m…? Are you colour-blind, Angel? Maybe the light up there in Heaven is too bright and you’re the equivalent of sssnow-blind…” “Well, maybe Hell is too gloomy and all you ever see is black!”, Aziraphale shot back somewhat angrily. “Hnk…wh-…You…”, Crowley started, but then just huffed in frustration, crossed his arms and pointedly looked away.

Aziraphale sighed. “Crowley…? Uh…look…I…I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…” Somewhat hesitantly he put his hand on the demon’s arm. Crowley flinched ever so slightly, but then he sighed and turned back around to face the angel. “’m sorry too…Didn’t…didn’t mean to…well…” He made a vague gesture. Aziraphale smiled encouragingly. “It’s alright…Maybe…maybe we should just…agree to disagree? Wouldn’t be the first time, after all. It’s perfectly fine to have different opinions on things…and…well…as you told me, it seems people are having rather heated debates about this dress all over the globe…” “Ugh…m-…yeah…Just didn’t…think _we’d_ end up having this debate too…It seemed so obvious…I wondered how anyone could be so stu-…” Crowley stopped himself – he had indeed been convinced that half of humanity had gone insane, but now he realised that he’d have to throw Aziraphale right onto that pile of ‘insane’ and ‘stupid’ as well. Certainly not something he was willing to do right now, especially not out loud in front of the angel. Not after they’d just apologised to each other.

Aziraphale had noticed, anyway. He huffed slightly and then shook his head with a soft chuckle. “We’re two proper fools, aren’t we? As if there weren’t enough more important things to do, with the Antichrist and with…well…with Armageddon only a few years away, and what do we do? End up arguing about the colour of some fancy dress…” Crowley grinned. “Well, Angel, it’s nice to get your mind off impending doom now and then, don’t you think? Still…”, he frowned at the picture on his phone, “I can’t…ngh…I just…don’t see it…” Aziraphale gave him a warm smile. “Well, neither can I, frankly…I’d actually like to see this dress in real life – that would certainly end all those debates, our own included…As I was asking – is there actually a solution to this, my dear boy? Any…explanation? I mean, surely, whoever took this picture must have noticed all the fuss it caused?”

Crowley just shrugged. “Well…if I find out, I’ll let you know, Angel…Or…maybe you’d want to get a mobile phone of your own and find out for yourself, instead of pestering me about googling this or that?” The angel rolled his eyes in mock-exasperation. “Oh, come now, dear, I know you well enough to know that you won’t rest until you find out the truth about this dress – and then, there are really only two possible outcomes: One is that you’re right and I’m sure if that’s the case I’ll never hear the end of it, and the other is that I’m right and I do wonder if you’d even tell me at all in that case.” The demon quirked an eyebrow. “That you’d even suggest that I’d keep such important information from you, Angel…I’m hurt, really.” He placed a hand over his heart, feigning consternation.

Aziraphale couldn’t help smiling. “You’ll let me know?” At this, Crowley chuckled a bit. “Sure will, Angel. Essential information. Soo…wanna tell me if anyone Upstairs suspects anything? You know, about our involvement with…well, influencing the Antichrist and all that?” Aziraphale sighed. “I guess it’s very much the same as with Hell…All we can do is…well, try and do our best and hope…and, well, as you keep saying, if we do it right, the Apocalypse may yet be averted.” Crowley nodded, then he began to laugh. “What…Have I said something wrong, my dear boy?”, Aziraphale asked in slight confusion. But the demon shook his head, still chuckling. “Nah…was just thinking…Maybe, if everything else fails, we could just show this stupid picture of that blessed dress to our respective bosses and let them fight about _that_ …They might just forget Armageddon over that…” Crowley’s cheerfulness was rather infectious and Aziraphale couldn’t help joining in the giggles and laughter. At least for some time something as ridiculous as the question of the colours of a random dress served to lift the weight of the fate of the whole world off a demon’s and an angel’s shoulders. And maybe, just maybe, everything would turn out fine in the end.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, of course Crowley was correct and we can all be sure that Aziraphale's assumption was right - of course he'd never hear the end of it!  
> In case anyone needs a refresher - the dress has even made it to Wikipedia, so check it out here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dress


End file.
